Doctor West watched her rather dazedly as she went up and down the floor, her brows knit, her lips moving in self-communion. Her connection with the Municipal League in New York had given her an intimate knowledge of the devious means by which public service corporations sometimes gain their end. Her mind flashed over all the situation's possibilities.
Suddenly she paused before her father, face flushed, triumph in her eyes.
"Father, _it was planned!_"
"Eh?" said he.
"Father," she demanded excitedly, "do you know what the great public service corporations are doing now?" Her words rushed on, not waiting for an answer. "They have got hold of almost all the valuable public utilities in the great cities, and now they are turning to a fresh field--the small cities. Westville is a rich chance in a small way. It has only thirty thousand inhabitants now. But it is growing. Some day it will have fifty thousand--a hundred thousand."
"That's what people say."
"If a private company could get hold of the water-works, the system would not only be richly profitable at once, but it would be worth a fortune as the city grows. Now if a company, a clever company, wanted to buy in the water-works, what would be their first move?"
"To make an offer, I suppose."
"Never! Their first step would be to try to make the people want to sell. And how would they try to make the people want to sell?"
"Why--why----"
"By making the water-works fail!" Her excitement was mounting; she caught his shoulders. "Fail so badly that the people would be disgusted, just as they now are, and willing to sell at any price.
And now, father--and now, father--" he could feel her quivering all over--"listen to me! We're coming to the point! How would they make the water-works fail?"
He could only blink at her.
"They'd make it fail by removing from office, and so disgracing him that everything he had done would be discredited, the one incorruptible man whose care and knowledge had made it a success!
Don't you see, father? Don't you see?"
"Bless me," said the old man, "if I know what you're talking about!"
"With you out of the way, whom they knew they could not corrupt, they could buy under officials to attend to the details of making the water bad and the plant itself a failure--just exactly what has been done.
You are not the real victim. You are just an obstruction--something that they had to get out of the way. The real victim is Westville!
It's a plan to rob the city!"
His gray eyes were catching the light that blazed from hers.
"I begin to see," he said. "It hardly seems possible people would do such things. But perhaps you're right. What are you going to do?"
"Fight!"
"Fight?" He looked admiringly at her glowing figure. "But if there is a strong company behind all this, for you to fight it alone--it will be an awful big fight!"
"I don't care how big the fight is!" she cried exultantly. "What has almost broken my heart till now is that there has been no one to fight!"
A shadow fell on the old man's face.
"But after all, Katherine, it is all only a guess."
"Of course it is only a guess!" she cried. "But I have tested every other possible solution. This is the only one left, and it fits every known circumstance of the case. It is only a guess--but I'll stake my life on its being the right guess!" Her voice rose. "Oh, father, we're on the right track at last! We're going to clear you! Don't you ever doubt that. We're going to clear you!"
There was no resisting the ringing confidence in her voice, the fire of her enthusiasm.
"Katherine!" he cried, and opened his arms.
She rushed into them. "We're going to clear you, father! And, oh, won't it be fine! Won't it be fine!"
For a space they held each other close, then they parted.
"What are you going to do first?" he asked.
"Try to find the person, or corporation, behind the scheme."
"And how will you do that?"
"First, I shall talk it over with Mr. Blake. You know he told me to come to him if I ever wished his advice. He knows the situation here--he has the interests of Westville at heart--and I know he will help us. I'm not going to lose a second, so I'm off to see him now."
She rushed downstairs. But she did have to lose a second, and many of them, for when she called up Mr. Blake's office on the telephone, the answer came back that Mr. Blake was in the capital and would not return till the following day on the one forty-five. It occurred to Katherine to advise with old Hosie Hollingsworth, for during the long summer her blind, childish shrinking had changed to warm liking of the dry old lawyer; and she had discovered, too, that the heresies it had been his delight to utter a generation before--and on which he still prided himself--were now a part of the belief of many an orthodox divine.
But she decided against conferring with Old Hosie. Her adviser and leader must be a man more actively in the current of modern affairs.
No, Blake was her great hope, and precious and few as were the hours before the trial, there was nothing for it but to wait for his return.
She went up to her room, and her excited mind, now half inspired, went feverishly over the situation and all who were in any wise concerned in it. She thought of the fifty dollar check from the Acme Filter Company. With her new viewpoint she now understood the whole bewildering business of that check. The company, or at least one of its officers, was somehow in on the deal, and there had been some careful scheming behind the sending of that fifty dollars. The company had been confronted with two obvious difficulties. First, it had to make certain that the check would not be received until after the two thousand dollars was in the hands of her father. Second, the date of the check and the date of the Westville postmark must be earlier than the day the two thousand dollars was delivered--else Doctor West could produce check and envelope to prove that the check had not arrived until after he had already accepted what he thought was the donation, and thus perhaps ruin the whole scheme. What had been done, Katherine now clearly perceived, was that some one, most probably an assistant of her father, had been bought over to look out for the arrival of the letter, to hold it back until the critical day had passed, and then slip it into her father's neglected mail.
Her mind raced on to further matters, further persons, connected with the situation. When she came to Bruce her hands clenched the arms of her wicker rocking chair. In a flash the whole man was plain to her, and her second great discovery of the day was made.
Bruce was an agent of the hidden corporation!
The motive behind his fierce desire to destroy her father was at last apparent. To destroy Doctor West was his part in the conspiracy. As for his rabid advocacy of municipal ownership, and all his fine talk about the city's betterment, that was mere sham--merely the virtuous front behind which he could work out his purpose unsuspected. No one could quote the scripture of civic improvement more loudly than the civic despoiler. She always had distrusted him. Now she knew him. Many a time through the night her mind flashed back to him from other matters and she thrilled with a vengeful joy at the thought of tearing aside his mask.
It was a long and feverish night to Katherine, and a long and feverish forenoon. At a quarter to two she was in Blake's office, which was furnished with just that balance between simplicity and richness appropriate to a growing great man with a constituency half of the city and half of the country. She had sat some time at a window looking down upon the Square, its foliage now a dusty, shrivelled brown, when Blake came in. He had not been told that she was waiting, and at sight of her he came to a sudden pause. But the next instant he had crossed the room and was shaking her hand.
For that first instant Katherine's eyes and mind, which during the last twenty-four hours had had an almost more than mortal clearness, had an impression that he was strangely agitated. But the moment over, the impression was gone.
He placed a chair for her at the corner of his desk and himself sat down, his dark, strong, handsome face fixed on hers.
"Now, how can I serve you, Katherine?"
There were rings about her eyes, but excitement gave her colour.
"You know that to-morrow is father's trial?"
"Yes. You must have a hard, hard fight before you."
"Perhaps not so hard as you may think." She tried to keep her tugging excitement in leash.
"I hope not," said he.
"I think it may prove easy--if you will help me."
"Help you?"